Setting session variable names based on variables in a loop

Question

I am trying to set up a loop that sets up a list of variables based upon a list, by looping over the list and setting the session.NAME:
<CFLOOP list="#fieldnames#" index="fieldname">
<cfset session.#fieldname# = "1">
</CFLOOP>
It does not seem to like session.A_CF_VARIABLE . so session.#fieldname# does not work, I get an error
A CFML variable name cannot end with a "." character.
The variable session. ends with a "." character. You must supply an additional structure key or delete the "." character.
Do I have to wrap it a different way?
Thanks
Mark

Answer 1

ahh. great. that fixed the loop problem. My second problem now appears that I am not picking up the correct data.
My test data has a form post with field names EMAIL and GENDER, and then I was trying to write session.email = VALUE_OF_FORM_FOR_EMAIL .. session.gender = VALUE_OF_FORM_FOR_GENDER, but what I am actually doing is writing the values EMAIL and GENDER into the session. so session.email has the value EMAIL.. and not what I typed into the form.
I guess it's because the fieldname in the index is also used as the name in the form and it's confusing it, so it goes for the wrong one, not the value from the form.
the alternative would be to append something to the name of each field in the form.. so email is F_email and F_gender... although i tried this and using <CFSET session[fieldname] = "F_#fieldname"> but that threw an error, maybe just a formatting issue. I'd prefer to try and make it work without appending anything to the form names
Here's some test code that has the form fields hard coded -->
<CFSET fieldnames="email,gender">
<CFSET email = "[email protected]">
<CFSET gender = "M">
<CFLOOP list="#fieldnames#" index="fieldname">
<cfset session[fieldname] = '#fieldname#'>
</CFLOOP>
Thanks once again for the help
Mark